I have had a number of achievements in extra-curricular in my college days, but this one is a bitdifferent. Well, it’s my first success in the blogging world. I nearly got elected as the ‘IndiBlogger of the Month’. Yeah, yeah, I know I am a looser; I came second and there are no doughnuts for me. But never mind, the race was close and I lost to the deserving one. Now for those who are scratching their heads, I’ll elaborate on what all I just said.Indiblogger is an online community of the Indian bloggers all over the world. Here we meet fellow bloggers, surf through their blogs and discuss various blogging issues in the community’s forum. Last month, Indiblogger started a contest by the name IndiBlogger of the Month. Here, every month a new topic/category will be selected on the basis of the discussions held in the forum and it will be put up for the competition.All members can nominate their own blogs for the polling if they have posted at least five articles on the selected topic. For example, topic for the last month was ‘Politics and Current Affairs’. In the process of self nomination, we had to submit links to our five posts, priority-wise for the consideration of the administrators. If they are convinced that all the posts are relevant, our blog gets nominated for the competition. Once, the voting starts all the members can vote for the best blog of all, after going through the posts of the nominated bloggers. Those nominated cannot vote for their own blog.So this month, the category for the contest was ‘Social Issues’. As last month, I again nominated my blog and it was allowed to participate. I was in for a big surprise. Having won not a single vote last time, I ended up with 22 votes which sealed the second position for me this time.The winner is Indiahelps, blog of a civil society initiative formed after 26/11 terror attacks. While I am just writing on the social issues, these people are actually making the difference on the field. Hence, they are the deserving winners indeed.While I exhilarate further, here is some cud for you to chew:

You can also see the results page on Indiblogger for more details. Here is a screenshot.You might have noticed that most of the blogs on the top are dedicated entirely to social issues(or belong to NGO’s having multiple contributors) while mine is just a personal blog with my musings and reflections on just anything under the sky; social issues happen to be just one of them. So being recognized from amongst all these gives another reason to brag about.Another thing that has added to my elation is the post which I submitted as my first priority, My 'de-reservations' about the Reservation. It is an unconventional one-my take on the Reservation policy. Unconventional, not because of the issue but because of my stand; it is pro-reservation. Here I presented my so called Empathic Libertarian view point and now that I have received all these votes, it means people accepted my way of looking at different social issues.Here is the list of other posts, I nominated for the contest:

You must be wondering why I am blowing my own trumpet. I can hear you grumbling distinctively; “We all remember Edmund Hillary and Neil Armstrong but who remembers the second man/woman to repeat their feat?”It’s true, I agree (though I know the answers- Tenzing Norgay and Edwin Aldrin). So while others choose to forget me and my petty achievement, let me bask or rather bath in my own glory! As it is, I haven’t taken a shower today.Before winding up this post, I have to thank those who voted for me. It being a secret ballot, I have no idea who all voted for my blog. Moreover, they were humble enough not to intimate me after such a nice favour. Thank you so much and I hope you people return to read more.Finally, bringing this stupid vaunting to an end (much to your pleasure I know), I’ll sign off with these epic words- “I’ll be back!”

Disclaimer:Please don’t get terrified because of my parting words. I am not a Terminator sent from the future to exterminate the Blogging race.Moreover, this sweet success has not gone to my head as it may seem. I am still the same old ‘yours truly’ humility-personified Vipul Grover;)

Dear reader, I have been diagnosed with ACDS or Acute Comments Deficiency Syndrome.
My condition is critical and deteriorating day by day. The Doctor has recommended me a high dosage of comments to stay alive.
So, if you took out time to read this post, be kind enough to take out some more time to leave a comment.
Your few more moments may add few more moments to my life.
May God bless you and your blog.

7
doses of compassionate comments received.:

congratulations for coming runnerup pal. It is indeed an achievement taking your last month Zero into account. (I am this month zero by the way :-). Jokes apart, I am very happy that people tend to accept your ideologies. It is a good sign.

hehe... i am gloating about getting 7 votes! whoppee! You must be gloating 3 times more :P

I like your blog and I think the unzipping of pants article was more of social consequence than most people thought. Believe it or not, I did this IN CLASS in my 1st yr in college when I was much more plumpy. After that low and ultra low jeans saved my day.

Hey Vipul, just a small correction, India Helps is not a NGO. Just a group of citizens trying to help out. The blog is run by me and I set India Helps as a blog trying to put people who wanted to help 26/11 victims directly in touch with the victims rather than going through an NGO, thats why I ended up unfortunately having my mugshot there, but its actually a group of folks doing the ground work you read about on the blog...And there's always a next month na, and a new contest... :)

Hey, Kiran I really appreciate the wrk being done by you and others through India Helps. The reason I mentiond ur initiative and gave a link 2 it was to mak a contribution on my part to ur beautiful cause. Anyways, I have removed the NGO tag, I gave to India Helps inadvertently, from the post. Let me know if thers any other changes tht need to be made in India Helps description.Thanks for the clarification.

Blog-a-Ton Reflections

These are the latest updates from my community blog, Blog-a-Ton, an ever-growing online community of bloggers where we decide a topic and publish a post on it; the first saturday, every month. Visit it to know more.